May 2012
42 posts
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Find a cofounder, unlock Founder Dating for...
After our brief re-blog of the Toronto push for unlocking FounderDating, I recently spoke with Jessica Alter, the founder of the company.
Vancouver is one of the cities in Canada that she’d love to see “unlocked”. If you are looking for a cofounder / want to build a startup, you can skip the explanation and head straight to the unlock page for Vancouver.
From Jessica, here is...
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Sip 'N' Play
Working at bridging the gap between the established tech community and the wide world of students.
http://sipandplay.eventbrite.ca/
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DemoCamp 14
We’re doing it again. For the 14th time DemoCamp is coming back to Vancouver.
Brought to you by the good people of Vancouver Pixel Crafters and Launch Academy.
When: Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 - 6pm
Where: Grow Lab (116 W Hastings Street)
How much: $10 on Eventbrite
(add to calendar on VanCal)
The format
Come to the event.
If you want to, pitch your company. You get 30 seconds.
...
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Teaser launch of Chloi →
Rob & Brock’s new startup, Chloi. They are going to be tackling the problems around developing for the mobile web. Stay tuned for more info.
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Node Brigade Vancouver - Meetup →
Rob & Brock of Chloi announced the launch of the Node Brigade meetup in Vancouver.
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LeWeb London semi-finalists announced – Milo... →
Congrats to local Vancouver startup Runnr for being invited to be one of only 16 companies pitch on stage at LeWeb.
Follow founders @andreimpop and @graeham as they head to London.
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Find a cofounder | StartupNorth →
David writes about unlocking Founder Dating for Toronto.
FounderDating brings together super talented entrepreneurs with different backgrounds and skill sets to start innovative new companies. All too often you know people with similar backgrounds and skills sets to your own. We help you find co-founders with complimentary skill sets.
Well, of course we’ll need to unlock Vancouver!
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Translink EPP for small Co's
Translink offers an employer pass at about at 15% discount.
Organizations who have at least 25 employees (who want the pass).
I’m wondering if there’s some way we could organize a few local co’s to band together to get this up and running, in an extensible way (so other new co’s could join). There’d likely be some minimal administrative overhead that would need to...
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Launch: Reelhouse →
Reelhouse is a bit like Kickstarter optimized for only video content. In their own words:
Reelhouse is a place for video creators and viewers to find each other. We allow filmmakers to showcase their work, and give fans a way to help them continue creating the stories we all love.
Congrats to @dethe on shipping!
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Philosophic Entrepreneur Live Dialogue May 31st,...
Are you an experienced entrepreneur in Vancouver? Want to discuss the art of entrepreneurship with other smart entrepreneurs?
Join us for this month’s Dialogue:
How can we encourage our employees to think entrepreneurially?
It’s very common for entrepreneurs to see opportunity everywhere and be frustrated that their employees don’t. We secretly long for the early days when...
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Cheezburger Network in Vancouver →
VEF Momentum is bringing Ben Huh, CEO of Cheezburger Network to town. Friday June 22nd. He’s over a billion page views and raised $30mm.
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Northern Voice 2012 →
The schedule for Northern Voice is up.
$75, Friday and Saturday, June 15th and 16th. Tickets on Eventbrite »
(on VanCal)
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Langara Becomes a Google Campus | Vancity Buzz →
(via @nik_tribalddb)
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Geeks on a Train (GOAT) to GrowConf →
We’re reserving a traincar Tuesday August 21 from PDX-SEA-VAN for GROWConf. We’ve got wifi, food, drink, weblebrities, and a train car of geeks. Let us know if you want to join us and we’ll contact you with details.
Amazing! I feel like going down to Portland just for an excuse to travel along on the train.
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GrowLab Matures with Announcement of Second Cohort... →
Congrats to the Spring 2012 cohort - BlueBat, Cinecoup, Food.ee, Skyscrpr, Wantering. The Techvibes article also covers the changes that these are later stage companies, and that taking office space is no longer a requirement.
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HootSuite at centre of Vancouver-area tech boom →
Congrats to Ryan and the rest of the owls for a great piece in the Vancouver Sun on becoming an anchor company and growing the Vancouver ecosystem.
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Apply to Gather Pop Up, by Cargoh →
Gather Pop Up Shop will take place in the heart of downtown Vancouver. One of Gastown’s most popular destinations, the former Boneta’s, will be home to Gather; expect an explosion of creativity, collection and community! What you’ll get as a vendor – an amazing marketing experience from the makers of Cargoh reaching out to 5,000 savvy shoppers, a chic opening night media party and 3 days of fun...
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WalkaboutNYC, How It All Started | HARVEST Time... →
In 2010, with the momentum of the technology ecosystem rising in New York, we decided to bring that opportunity to a larger audience. What if we organized an “open house for technology companies” so more people can take part in the experience of seeing space and meeting the people behind them? We coined it Walkabout, after all, it’s a journey of discovery and NYC is a fine city for walking. That...
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Introducing VanCal
I’m in town next week, what events are happening? Which meetups should I join? Where do I find out about events going on in Vancouver? When I’m planning an event, how do I find out if I’m conflicting with existing plans? Where can I book some space for my event?
All of these are hard questions to answer when the information is spread between multiple silos of information. But,...
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Digital Media Sector Scoping Survey →
The Information and Communication and Technology Council (ICTC) has commenced a new initiative: HR Capacity for Digital Media. This exciting initiative is designed to help position Canada as a global leader in the digital economy by supporting industry’s efforts to develop a highly skilled and competitive Digital Media workforce, towards achieving greater success and productivity in the digital...
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MEET THE V-POLE →
Vancouver writer and artist Douglas Coupland, today at the New Cities Summit in Paris, unveiled the V‑Pole, a simple proposal for the future of complex urban utilities, including wi-fi and wireless data traffic.
The V-Pole (‘V’ for Vancouver) is a slim, modular utility pole connected to underground optical wiring. In a simple Lego-like manner, it can be installed in urban settings and provides...
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Uber Blog » Uber “Secret Testing Phase” Begins in... →
Uber Vancouver is in research mode. While there are some cars on the road, please keep this in mind as your experience during our “Secret Uber Phase” may not blow your mind in the way it will once we officially launch (though there is a good chance it will). We’re still in the process of building our supply and hitting the perfect price point, so feedback is welcome! Please send your thoughts to...
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It ain’t easy being green: Hacking on Nike open... →
Nike has gathered and made available a Materials Sustainability Index, a way to ”to evaluate the environmental sustainability of materials and the suppliers that produce them”.
They are running a hackathon to get feedback and new ideas.
Luke Closs asks: “What #Vancouver companies are going to champion this?”
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Welcome Wagon: Pat Dryburgh →
In less than four days I will be flying across this great nation of ours to a city I never dreamed I’d move to. I’m excited, anxious, and a bit nervous about shipping all of my guitars.
It’s been nearly two years working by myself. It’s been awesome, but I’ve definitely missed working closely with a team. I will be working full time with Danny and his team, as well as maintaining my freelance...
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Lunch @MahonyAndSons #tweetup on Friday, May 11 @... →
A little last minute, but make it if you can.
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Help The HiVE Thrive! -- Indiegogo →
We opened a year ago, in May 2011. Since then we’ve learned a WHOLE LOT about running a non-profit community space. (Rule #1 - bees like free coffee with their honey.) We also learned that to have a vision, sometimes one has to incur some debt to realize it.
While we are living the dream, we are still in a debt-servicing phase which is preventing us from truly growing and offering the...
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“Entrepreneurial Communities Must be Led by Entrepreneurs”
– Start Something, the CED Blog: Brad Feld and Thoughts on Startup Communities
Other take aways from the discussion with Brad Feld include:
Having a 20 year view
The community must be inclusive
Create things that include and engage
pkneer asked: With all of the excellent pixel crafters in Vancouver this seems like a no-brainer! The only questions is where do I sign up?
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Watch(via This Is Our Stop on CBC - Denim & Steel)
I promise this isn’t going to be a full time D&S promo site, but Tylor & Todd have done a great job to capture media interest - so great to see this live on CBC last night.
“A community for the web, software, and design craftspeople of Vancouver.”
– Vancouver Pixel Crafters. Very briefly known as Vancouver (Tech) is Awesome, but we couldn’t really abuse VIAwesome’s brand quite so much :P
On Twitter as @vanpixelcraft. Stay tuned (or join).
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Startup Crawl around Grow Conference
Here’s what we’re thinking:
There are going to be a lot of people visiting Vancouver for Growconf (week of August 20th).
It’s an opportunity to have a local audience for new companies, new products, and launches in general.
We want to showcase the startup ecosystem in Vancouver while we’ve got lots of attention. This means new startups that are just getting going, as...
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Seattle VCs invest in TechStars, supporting 3 more... →
It would be great to see VCs investing in incubation and seed services here in Vancouver. GrowthWorks did make an investment in Bootup Labs, but looking down south, the entire Seattle VC community got together to support TechStars Seattle.
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Workshops - Scalable and Modular Architecture for... →
We’ll have a riotous time learning CSS in delightful downtown Vancouver! Thanks to Microsoft for providing space and catering for this one. Early bird price is CDN$245/$295. After April 30, regular price is $345/$395.
The infamous Snook is coming to Vancouver in mid June to teach a SMACSS Workshop
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Vancouver Sun: The Digital Doctor is in ... your... →
Digido Interactive, Ayogo, QxMD and others are mentioned in this Vancouver Sun article on digital / mobile health.
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Early User Engagement for Startups: Hack Hut...
Hey folks,
Come join @kalv for a Hack Hut Peer Learning Session about engaging early users of your product. Learn what’s working for him and @goodbitsco and share what’s working for you. Hack Hut, 2pm Friday May 4.
Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/208841899233759/
Join us Friday, May 4, at 2pm for a conversation with Kalvir Sandhu (Goodbits.co) about early user...
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This Is Our Stop launch
This Is Our Stop is an ad-hoc social network for bus stops in Vancouver, give it a try at http://thisisourstop.com. From the launch blog post:
This project brings together so much of what we’re interested in: web, social, mobile, physical-digital connections, and how open data makes new things possible. The project has already caught some attention, notably by Dan Misener writing in the Globe...
Initio Office Hours →
Meet Mike. It’s really and truly worth it.
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Drink Beer with VSG and SoftLayer →
Come out to the Vancouver Social Games spring kickoff event. The VSG team is pleased to announce that SoftLayer is sponsoring the event and there will be drinks and food. Only 100 spots available so please RSVP soon. Enjoy the fantastic food of Revel room and some custom cocktails!
SoftLayer is the cloud infrastructure provider of choice for companies building for Internet Scale, and the largest...
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Payfirma opens its mobile payment platform to... →
Mobile POS company Payfirma has added an interesting wrinkle to the whole “every phone’s a payment terminal” phenomenon. The company has opened up its mobile payment platform to developers meaning developers of third party mobile apps for iOS and Android devices can add mobile payment acceptance using a credit card swipe on to their apps.
Payfirma is a Vancouver based company...
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Mind Your Elders « Startup Communities →
But, most of all, [the entrepreneurial ecosystem] needs Elders. That is, Mentors, coaches, Angel Investors; people who can serve informally and formally as guides. Their roles vary…from providing the seed capital to germinate ideas to providing a steadying, calm demeanor making the roller coaster of the startup experience just slightly easier to bear. “An Elder,” I say in my talks on the subject,...
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Community Manager, OpenNews — Mozilla Foundation →
Interested in the intersection of journalism + code? You could work at Mozilla Vancouver with this Mozilla Foundation position:
The Knight-Mozilla OpenNews project engages developers around the world to create code that will make journalism thrive on the open web. The Community Manager is the key position to make that happen.
The Community Manager is a wired-in connector who knows how to grow...
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Vancouver Hack Space Growth & Memberships
I was recently speaking with Luke Closs of the Vancouver Hack Space Society aka VHS. VHS has been growing, despite their alley location. I had mentioned that several “maker” acquaintances were still a bit hesitant about the space, especially regarding bringing in their kids. Here are Luke’s thoughts on the location, new space & membership growth.
Location location location....
